


No other men like me

by LadyRhiyana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, F/M, Gen, Identity Reveal, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, body-swap (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-14 02:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16904799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: Jaime charged at a dragon and died.But -After the Dragonpit, Bronn, Tyrion and Brienne encounter a strangely familiar man fleeing from the Queensguard.Now with added bonus chapter and happy ending.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So, um, this happened. I am posting it before I talk myself out of it. Please enjoy(!?)

The conclave at the Dragonpit had gone about as well as Bronn thought it would. If no one had actually been killed, the Lion Queen had come damned close when her brother Tyrion had looked at the space by her right hand and asked, disastrously, “Where is Jaime? Is he…?”

The Queen had looked at him, then, her face impassive but her eyes vicious wildfire green. “Jaime is dead,” she had said, her voice poisonously sweet, “as you should know. You were there, weren’t you, brother? Watching, as the dragon burned his army to ash?”

Bronn had made himself scarce after that. 

**

The delegation was almost to the docks when he heard shouting, the drumming of hooves and the clash of swords. The King in the North and Tyrion whirled, their guards’ hands going to their arms; Bronn looked to his own men, who looked worried and unsure. 

“If this is an ambush, Bronn,” Tyrion said, “remember – double.”

Bronn threw him an injured look. Just then, the source of the shouting emerged: 

Two of the Queensguard in full armour, with four gold-cloaks in support, were flying through the streets on horseback, pursuing a lone figure on foot. The lone figure was young, slender, golden-haired and dressed in a crimson tunic – one of the stripling lesser Lannisters, Bronn thought absently; Martyn or Wilhem or who the fuck knew, there were so many of them. 

They spilled out into the open area of the docks, the stripling dodging and weaving, trying to escape his pursuers. 

“Martyn!” Tyrion shouted, “here!” The stripling threw a look his way and began to head towards them.

But before the young Lannister could make it to their party, the mounted knights encircled him, their swords out and ready to strike. 

“No!” Brienne of Tarth drew her lion-hilted sword; the self-appointed saviour of Lannisters in distress.

But she was too late – young Martyn Lannister, seeing no way out, stood his ground and drew his sword. 

** 

Even as they watched, the boy cut at the horses’ legs and belly straps, spilling his opponents to the ground; he cut down one of the flailing Queensguard with a brutal two-handed strike and whirled to face the other, kicking out to send him stumbling off balance before slashing open his throat. He attacked like a whirlwind, blindingly swift, his sword striking with ruthless precision; he moved with feline grace and balance, each step steady even as horses screamed and struggled and men swore and shouted and struck out wildly. 

He seized one of the few horses still on its feet and swung into the saddle with extraordinary grace, controlling it with his knees as he fought, the horse circling and kicking out. Deliberately he rode one of the gold-cloaks down, trampling the poor bastard beneath the horse’s hooves. Tossing his head back, his golden hair shining in the sun, Bronn watched as he hunted the other three down, his blood-streaked sword rising and falling with ruthless, implacable grace – 

Bronn knew that fierce skill, had seen the ruined shadow of it every time he sparred with Jaime Lannister.

 _There are no other men like me,_ he had said once. _There is only me._

Afterwards, two Queensguard and four gold-cloaks lying broken on the stone cobbles, the boy – he was barely 20 years old, his beard still scraggly peach-fuzz – rode up to them. His face was blood-spattered, his tunic stained with gouts of darker red; his green eyes were wild and dazed, and he stared at Tyrion and Brienne in desperation. 

“Fuck me,” Bronn breathed, “what have they done?”

**

“There was fire, and darkness, and then I woke up in Cersei’s bed,” the boy – _Jaime_ – said later, when they were safely on board their ship and sailing the hell away from King’s Landing. “I had two hands, and I was – I was slimmer, and my body felt wrong, and when I looked in the mirror I saw Martyn’s face looking back at me –”

“Qyburn,” Bronn said, his skin crawling at the thought of whatever unholy necromancy the Queen’s Hand had performed. The only consolation was that it was not as abominable as what he had done to Gregor Clegane.

“Yes.” A ghost of a sardonic smile crossed that too-young face. “I said, once, that my father would make him archmaester if he could grow my hand back. I wonder what he will ask for this.”

They’re sitting in the captain’s cabin, Tyrion staring in open wonder at his cousin – his brother, Bronn supposed – and Brienne of Tarth, standing in the corner, watching him like a hawk – as though she was afraid his new life would be snatched away if she blinked. 

Wild rumours of either death or miraculous survival had flown the length and breadth of Westeros after the Kingslayer’s desperately heroic – and bloody stupid – charge, tales of the golden-armoured knight on his white horse galloping towards the monstrous dragon swiftly becoming legend. 

Bronn had brought his body back to King’s Landing. He knew what the dragonfire had done to that heroic knight. 

“What will you do now?” Brienne asked. “Unholy or not, you’ve been given a second chance. No one will ever know who you are –”

Jaime’s green eyes narrowed and his shoulders went back, that fierce, indignant outraged pride – sheer bloody Lannister arrogance – that came of being a _Lannister of Casterly Rock_ , the sense of identity so strong it transcended even rebirth into a new body. Looking at him now, the sense of the Jaime Lannister Bronn had known was so strong that he didn’t even see the younger, different body, only the familiar presence. 

“I _am_ Ser Jaime Lannister,” he said fiercely. “Not even death and rebirth can change that. I will not hide and pretend to be anything other than what I am.” And then he sighed and looked away, gesturing in apology. “But I can’t stay in King’s Landing any more. Cersei has gone mad, and if what you say about these – _wights_ – is true, I will come north to fight them with you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now with added bonus chapter! Jaime and Brienne finally cross swords.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this little chapter provides a satisfactory resolution. Thank you to all who provided kudos and encouraged me to continue.

Martyn’s hair was the true, curling Lannister-gold. That much at least was familiar. His eyes were the same green. But his face was – he was handsome enough, but it was not Jaime’s face. It was not Cersei’s face.

“I never thought you were so vain,” Brienne said, coming into the cabin. “What does it matter what you look like? Surely that’s the least of your worries.” 

He tore his gaze away from the burnished mirror. He had to look up further to meet her gaze; Martyn was not as tall as Jaime had been. 

“Did I ever say that to you?” he asked. “If so, I apologise for my past self.”

She snorted in amusement. “Jaime,” she said, and then stopped, her mouth twisting, her shoulders curling in on herself. She slumped down into a chair, and stared at him, her blue eyes painfully sincere. 

“Jaime,” she said again. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was dead,” he retorted automatically. 

“I mourned for you,” she said. 

He looked away. She reached out, her hand huge and calloused and freckled, and drew his gaze back to hers. 

“Whatever unholy sorcery has wrought this,” she said, “I am thankful for it.”

** 

The weight of the practice sword felt almost strange in his right hand. He had just about accustomed himself to the strained, uncomfortable compromise required for fighting with his left hand, and now – 

The fight with the Queensguard had been pure instinct and adrenaline.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what to do with it,” Bronn called out, lounging on the side of their makeshift practice ring.

Jaime scowled at him. “I know what to do with it,” he called back. 

Beside Bronn, Tyrion and young Podrick Payne snickered.

“Come on, show me then,” Brienne said, calling his attention back to the present. She stood across from him, dressed in her blue armour, tall and powerful and confident.

They took it slowly at first, running through the basic drills. Martyn had been fairly good with a sword, but his reflexes were not as lightning-quick as Jaime’s had been, his grace and agility not as honed. 

Martyn had been competent, but Jaime had never settled for competent as a boy and he wasn’t about to settle now. 

“You move well,” Brienne said, her eyes narrowed as they circled each other, “but you’re over-thinking everything. Don’t think.” 

_Don’t think._ As if he hadn’t had to think and adjust and compromise every time he picked up a sword in his left hand. _Don’t think._ Just as he hadn’t thought when he drew his sword on the docks against the Queensguard, his blood singing. 

Jaime fixed his attention on her blue, blue eyes – and threw himself forward, not thinking. 

She knocked him painfully to the deck in five moves. “Again,” she said.

Podrick winced, and Tyrion and Bronn hooted with laughter. Gritting his teeth, Jaime got back to his feet and faced her again. This time it took her six, seven, eight moves before she dumped him on his back. 

“Again.”

Teeth bared, he forced himself up and attacked again, and again, and again until the sword felt right in his hand once more and his body remembered the rhythm of it – until a shadow of his grace and fluidity returned and he met her stroke for stroke, lunging and thrusting, his feet sure and steady underneath him and his sword once more an extension of his arm. 

He laughed, filled with a fierce and hot-blooded joy that was all his own. 

** 

Later that night she came to him in his cabin. 

“I thought we were going to wait until I was strong enough,” he said, laughing as he trailed his mouth down her neck. 

She tugged at his hair and pulled his gaze up to hers. “You were always strong enough,” she said. “Even with only your left hand.” She considered this. “Especially when you only had your left hand.”

He put his head down on her shoulder, breathing through a sudden rush of emotion. 

“Jaime,” she said, “what use is there in waiting? If you’re going to charge headlong at dragons, I want to be beside you.” 

And so he kissed her, and they tumbled down to the uncomfortable bunk bed and had their way with each other, laughing and wrestling for supremacy. 

Afterwards, she put her hand over his swiftly-beating heart. “Poor Martyn,” she said softly. “But I can’t bring myself to wish it undone.”

Lying entangled together they drifted in slow, silent contentment, the creaking ship and the slow roll and pitch of the waves softly lulling them into sleep.


End file.
